


The Last Mistake

by Ashentongue



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Angst, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canonical Character Death, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Hate Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, M/M, Mental Institutions, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-21 04:23:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3677301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashentongue/pseuds/Ashentongue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The freight train slowed down as lumbered over the long bridge towards the city, and the stowaway hidden between the crates stirred from his slumber. The flickering light caused shadows overhead, and for a moment he thought it was an object coming down on his head, a long and slender metal tool chased by mad laughter –</p><p>Jason Todd jerked his arm up to block a blow that never came. Drawing breath sharply, he stared up with unseeing eyes before his pale gaze slowly sharpened. He remembered himself again. And he was almost at his destination.</p><p>-</p><p>Jason-centered DC Comics Batfamily AU where aliens and meta-humans don’t exist, miracles are scarce and few, and everything comes with a price. Picks up where ‘Under the Red Hood’ left off and uses material from the New 52, but elements have been stripped and modified to suit a more low-power Batverse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bruce

**Author's Note:**

> Jason-centered DC Comics Batfamily AU where aliens and meta-humans don’t exist, miracles are scarce and few, and everything comes with a price. Picks up where ‘Under the Red Hood’ left off and uses material from the New 52, but elements have been stripped and modified to suit a more low-power Batverse. 
> 
> I got rid of the Lazarus Pit, and thus Jason didn’t actually die in Ethiopia. Talia hid the tracks, whisking Jason away to a hidden League of Assassins location in Tibet. Without revealing too much, I’ll just say that his recovery took a long time and Talia manipulated him to her own ends to keep him from going back to Bruce.
> 
> There was no previously existing sexual relationship between Jason and Bruce. Just a lot of feels.
> 
> Bruce Wayne/Jason Todd is the main pairing. There’s some brotherly bonding between Jason and Dick later on, as well as Jason and Tim.
> 
> Might add tags later. I’ll warn about specific things in the chapter notes.

 

_We’ll be a family again_

_No one to steal you from my grasp_

_I’ll bury you right next to me_

_We’ll be together at long last_

\- The Last Mistake by **Assemblage 23**

 

The flapping of bats in the dark recesses of the vast cavern complex had long since ceased to register in the mind of Batman when he was immersed in thought. It had been a quiet night in Gotham City, distinctly lacking in megalomaniacal plots of mass murder or attempts to lure him into traps set by new and nefarious enemies.

 

The vast amount of time on his hands turned his thoughts inwards and darkened his mood, prompting no response to Alfred’s greeting as he paused in front of the case that held the Robin costume of a lost partner.

 

Jason had come back, full of anger and spite, painting their past mistakes on the walls of Gotham in blood.

 

Batman turned and kept walking, taking his place in front of the custom-built computer that occupied the Batcave. His old friend was used to his moods, and so Alfred only sighed, turning to take his leave.

 

“Don’t stay up too long, Master Bruce,” was heard from the staircase leading up to the mansion before the older man was gone.

 

Batman sat in silence for a long time before he slowly pulled the cowl off. Bruce Wayne looked tired as he began to scan reports on the computer, bringing up both local news and global events.

 

He discovered nothing instantly alarming or interesting, and without even noticing it he was starting to pull up older files.

 

It had been almost a year since the Red Hood incident, but he couldn’t stop thinking about how everything had turned out. How everything twisted and became worse, a collision in slow-motion that he couldn’t prevent, a violent clash after the shock of a lifetime.

 

He replayed the events in his mind endlessly, went all the way back to Ethiopia in his memories, drowned in _what ifs_.

 

Guilt inevitably followed. _Why_ hadn’t he seen the deception, _why_ didn’t he keep scouring the earth for any sign of Jason, _why_ couldn’t he stop Robin from going in the first place?

 

_His fault._ All of it.

 

Jason had fled Gotham, and Bruce was still trying to make sense of it all, trying to piece it together so he could reach a conclusion, would _know_ what to do.

 

Amidst all the things he had said, Red Hood hadn’t been very forthcoming about _where_ exactly he’d been hiding for years. _Or been hidden_ , Bruce silently added in his mind. He wasn’t ruling out the option that Jason had been held somewhere by somebody he was refusing to openly name.

 

That in itself was concerning. If another – or several others – had been involved, there was the chance that Jason’s mental state had been carefully constructed through means like drugs, torture, and extended coercion tactics.

 

Bruce weighed that option in his mind like he had done many times before, and again he came to the same conclusion. He didn’t believe anybody could break and reconstruct Jason without it showing more obviously in the end result.

 

There was more to Red Hood’s birth than Jason wanted to tell him, but he believed the boy… no, the _man_ he was dealing with was making his own decisions. He’d seen Jason’s impulsive streak from the start, tried to steer him away from letting it drive him to poor choices. Now he could see that while he may have been able to instil patience, even back then Robin had had a different idea of what was ‘right’.

 

Which meant that he had to accept Jason to be a killer in his own right and remorseless in that choice. Nothing Bruce said got through; his former protégé was angry and rebellious, convinced his newfound way was better than what he’d been taught as Robin. It made him a criminal just like the ones Batman went after every night.

 

Yet Bruce found himself unable to stop thinking of the way Jason had looked while waiting for the explosives to go off. Lost, hurt, defeated – waiting for the end alone, tuning out both him and the Joker.

 

That moment convinced him that _Jason_ was still there under the Red Hood. And he wanted to make it right, wanted to hold Jason and tell him it was okay.

 

For a moment he had held him, shielding them from the explosion, but the impact had loosened his grip and Jason broke free, bolting like a frightened animal. He was stuck under the debris, unable to follow. By the time he got out, there was no sign of Jason, and he had the Joker on his hands.

 

He had missed his opportunity, and now had no idea how to reach out to Jason without triggering another war between them.

 

And so he sat in front of the Batcave computer, fingers laced together and pressed against his mouth, gaze fixed on the information concerning the brutal vigilante his former partner had become. Red Hood was racking up the body count all across the globe and making no secret of himself, even letting himself get captured on video a few times by local news stations.

 

Bruce wondered if Jason did it because he knew Batman would hear of it. His mind twisted around in circles, the serpent biting its own tail in frustration. Worry lessened the resentment he felt as he feared Jason’s stunts to be another way to self-destruct.

 

But Red Hood always escaped, avoiding both vengeful criminals and the law enforcers that were trying to apprehend him for exacting ‘justice’ at gunpoint.

 

The unemotional part of him, the _logical_ part, was silently impressed by Jason’s efficiency. And the part that was still hanging onto hope was glad for the fact that Red Hood seemed to plan his killings to a degree, taking out key figures and leaving the rest alive to regret their life choices.

 

Jason could still be reached. Bruce just didn’t know how, and that angered him more than any of the news articles displayed by the cold computer screens.

 

He lowered one hand and pulled up a photo that hadn’t been displayed with the rest, a photo that had startled Bruce when it arrived, sent by a vacationing Nightwing from Spain.

 

‘ _Thought you might want to see the rare jay I spotted_ ,’ read the single line Dick had sent with the picture.

 

It was a quick shot taken with a hidden camera from a distance; no doubt Dick had to snap and go to avoid getting spotted. Daylight flooded the cobblestone street in the photo, people frozen mid-step where they’d been walking in front of a bar terrace. A casual, everyday scene with people enjoying their afternoon drink in the shade.

 

Not the kind of scene you’d expect to see Red Hood in. Except it wasn’t Red Hood, it was Jason. He’d been caught in civilian attire – a worn t-shirt and jeans, slouched over a table with a glass of beer in front of him.

 

Bruce hadn’t seen Jason fully out of costume since his return as Red Hood. It made his chest constrict.

 

The expression on Jason’s face was tired and he looked closed off, morose even, nothing at all like the sarcasm and fury that had come to Gotham to confront Batman.

 

Bruce couldn’t help it; he pulled up another photo with slightly shaky fingers. Jason on the street, one of the few shots taken of the boy when he’d been unaware, shortly before Bruce made the call to take him in.

 

The expression was so similar it was haunting. Jason had grown, of course, but it was still _him_. Yet at the same time it wasn’t, reminded a harsh part of Bruce. Red Hood was a reality now as well, and he set his jaw as he purposefully let his gaze go over the differences.

 

Jason’s eyes were paler, a shade of blue that was both cold and piercing. He’d grown in height and gained muscle mass, yet from Red Hood’s encounters with Batman it could be said that he’d lost none of the grace he’d been trained for as Robin. Jason’s skin had always been pale, but it almost looked ghostly now, like he never lingered in sunlight. A scar cut a line into the curve of his upper lip, and another disappeared from his forehead under his hairline at the same place where his hair had gained a white streak. He’d lost the baby fat on his face, revealing high cheekbones and attractive features.

 

Jason – as Robin – had always been sharp with his words, but the jibes were mostly playful, if occasionally rude in nature. Red Hood’s cutting sarcasm was darker, fuelled by his anger, always biting, always looking for a reaction, always confident.

 

The maturity had also brought an edge of … Bruce frowned. Flirtatiousness wasn’t the right word, but Red Hood was more than willing to wield sexuality as a weapon if the situation called for it. It wasn’t blatant like Catwoman’s goal-oriented ways of distraction, but some of the Hood’s huskily purred remarks left him with an uncomfortable itch under his skin.

 

Whatever thoughts he was starting to form about that were interrupted as an alarm went off and the computer automatically brought up a live video feed from a hidden camera located somewhere in Gotham.

 

It made him freeze in his seat and then lean forward. A hooded figure, a _male_ hooded figure had triggered the motion detector on the camera by entering a storage unit it had been set in months ago. He knew exactly where and why.

 

In silence, Bruce waited for the man to turn towards the stash he’d left undisturbed for a purpose. The second it happened, what he already knew from looking at the man’s posture and size was confirmed.

 

_Jason_.

 

It was a moment he’d both hoped for and dreaded. It felt too soon – even after months of considering the matter from every angle he could think of, he didn’t have a plan, didn’t know what to do with Jason.

 

In the end, he fell back on what he did know.

 

Batman couldn’t let Red Hood go unchecked. 


	2. Jason

 

_I'm gonna make a comeback_

_I'm gonna dig six feet up tonight_

_I'm gonna get it all back_

_I'm gonna make a comeback this time_

_–_ Comeback by **Redlight King**

 

The freight train slowed down as lumbered over the long bridge towards the city, and the stowaway hidden between the crates stirred from his slumber. The flickering light caused shadows overhead, and for a moment he thought it was an object coming down on his head, a long and slender metal tool chased by mad laughter –

 

Jason Todd jerked his arm up to block a blow that never came. Drawing breath sharply, he stared up with unseeing eyes before his pale gaze slowly sharpened. He remembered himself again. And he was almost at his destination.

 

Dragging himself up and to the side door, he slid it open to watch the sprawling city crawl by. Jagged buildings reached for the sky, the lights bright against black, an endless metropolis of metal, glass, and concrete. The chilling trickle of rain whipped him in the face in a cold greeting, a welcome to the city’s errant son.

 

Gotham ** _._** A city Jason had been born in, had survived in with the hand he’d been dealt. Some of his happiest memories had been made in Gotham, along with some of his very worst.

 

He avoided dwelling on either category, but he couldn’t help but remember the last time he’d been in Gotham, the recollection hounding him like a bad hangover.

 

Bruce had stopped him. He’d found a way _around_ his ultimatum, found a way to keep him _and_ that sick, twisted fuck alive.

 

Jason couldn’t remember the details very well after he’d pressed the button.

 

The searing pain on his hand had only lasted a moment before he’d gone numb, sliding down to the floor and staring at the red numbers counting down. Waiting for it all to end. Then Bruce – Batman had him, and he was pressed against his former mentor, shielded from the explosion that sent them flying.

 

For one insane moment, he thought they were back in Ethiopia and Bruce had made it in time. The relief that flooded him made his head swim, the knowledge of being _safe_ from everything bad that ever happened to him because Bruce _had him_.

 

Then he came to his senses and kicked himself free just as the ceiling came down on them.

 

He fled in the burning chaos, leaving Batman to make his way out from under the rubble, even leaving the Joker there, alive for his former mentor to retrieve and send back to Arkham.

 

The following days had not been his proudest. He drowned himself in alcohol and tears, the violent nightmares he always had bleeding into his waking hours. A part of him knew it had been _fucked up_ , that trying to force Bruce to kill couldn’t have any other outcome. The rest of him didn’t care, wallowing in self-pity and running like a whipped dog with his tail between his legs.

 

He went around the world, bruising and bleeding anything that stepped too far out of line. He cleaned out drug dens in Spain and cracked the heads of human traffickers in Macau before flying to Norway to track a killer with a taste for cutting up women and putting the corpses on display.

 

Jason put a bullet through that one’s brain at close range, but not before he’d broken nearly every bone in the fucker’s body.

 

None of it took away the hollow feeling in his chest, but exacting his bloody brand of vigilante justice distracted him enough that he wasn’t constantly thinking about his damn _feelings_ or lack thereof.

 

And then he had caught wind of something different. It kept him busy for months, trailing low-life, infiltrating the system until he caught a fish big enough to know what was what. The human-trafficking scum had a new trick up their sleeve, one that turned unwilling victims into mindless sex slaves without months or years of conditioning and mental abuse.

 

After staring into the blank eyes of men and women who were too far gone to save, Jason was determined to put a stop to it. Murderers were one thing, but erasing the minds and personalities of people until they were nothing but blank slates for their masters to write their ugly desires on? It made him sick to his very core.

 

And so did being back in Gotham. But this was where the trail led.

 

The drug was manufactured and shipped out from a small cosmetics factory on the respectable end of the city, right next to places that bottled shampoo and probably made that damn menthol-scented bath salt that Nightwing liked to use.

 

_Don’t think about Nightwing._ He didn’t exactly have anything against Dick, but that train of thought inevitably led to Batman again. Everything always led to fucking Batman.

 

Except this time he was just going to avoid Batman entirely.

 

It was simple, really – no baiting, no games, no fighting, and no breaking the Joker out of Arkham to _shoot a full mag into his disgusting, grinning face –_

 

Jason felt dizzy from the red haze of rage that threatened to engulf him. He could almost hear the maniacal cackle echo in his ears like it did almost every night. Relax. _Relax,_ goddammit.

 

He slowly loosened the white-knuckled grip he had on the sliding door. He hadn’t taken a plane because Batman had access to the airport security feed, and so the trip from the next city over had taken hours.

 

Enough for him to catch some fitful shut-eye, even if the whispers of unpleasant memories wouldn’t leave him alone.

 

Now all he had to do was get off before the freight train reached its final destination, and that was hardly a challenge at all for a former Robin. Jason jumped off the slow-moving train without flourish – Dick would’ve done a fucking backflip just for the sake of it – and landed in a graceful crouch in dark shadows.

 

He got up and started walking, pulling up the hood of his grey sweater. He wore torn jeans and old sneakers instead of Kevlar and leather. The purpose was to _blend in_ , not run around rooftops hollering his name so Batman could come rope him up and drag him off to Blackgate.

 

Damn if it didn’t leave him feeling bare, though. He was just another street kid again, walking in the piss-smelling alleys of Gotham’s foul underbelly, his hands deep in the pockets of his hooded sweater.

 

The difference was that Jason could fend for himself now. Any ugly fuckers who tried to lay a hand on him would be in for a nasty surprise, and thinking about it made him tighten his grip on the knife he carried hidden.

 

It was almost disappointing that nobody tried. He had a hungry look in his piercing eyes, gleaming when street lights hit the ice blue. It was a look regular street thugs weren’t willing to challenge.

 

He took a roundabout route to where he was headed, a short subway trip before a long walk at the outskirts of the city. Every now and then he glanced up, half expecting to see a black cape against the sky, but there was no sign of the Dark Knight’s theatrical entrances.

 

He told himself the tightness in his chest wasn’t disappointment, and even if it was, it was just because Batman was getting soft.

 

A building full of rarely-used storage units was his destination, and he grew more wary as he approached it. He avoided his own security measures easily while checking for signs that somebody had been there.

 

Jason found nothing alarming, but he went through the motions anyway. _Stupid deep-seated paranoia,_ he thought and blamed that too on Batman. Always have a contingency plan. Always make sure you’re prepared.

 

He unlocked the storage unit and entered, finding his stash undisturbed behind somebody else’s clutter of old furniture and knick-knacks. The previous owner had been a lonely guy who killed himself on Christmas, just another one of Gotham’s little tragedies.

 

Jason flipped the lid on the trunk and spared a smirk as he stared down at a red helmet and an assortment of leather and Kevlar. His rainy day plan also came with a set of guns, a grappling hook, and some other toys.

 

Sure, he was supposed to lay low, but the job called for Red Hood. Had to leave his calling card, after all, make sure somebody saw him and was left alive to tell the tale.

 

It was only a shame that he wouldn’t be in town long enough to hear how Batman took it.

 

It didn’t take long to get changed. Dressed to kill, Red Hood still avoided the rooftops as he headed for the industrial region, but looking up at the tall, dark buildings of Gotham City made him miss flying. Crime fighting aside, he used to race Dick from one end of the city to another. Nightwing had his acrobatics, but Jason knew his way around more than just the city’s rooftops. The races ran tight.

 

He was almost there when something made the hair at the back of his neck stand and he glanced up again. Only this time there was a dark shadow flying overhead and his heart nearly stopped before it started racing.

 

_Shitfuckhell._

 

Okay, maybe Batman was just on his way through to –

 

Or not.

 

Jason whirled around as the Dark Knight did one of his famous landings in the alley behind him. It led to a standoff that was almost fucking comical to Jason, him frozen absolutely still and the Big Bat standing there, a dark silhouette against the light behind him.

 

Batman was the one to break the stillness, taking a step closer. “Red Hood,” he started.

 

And that was all Jason let him say. He grabbed a smoke bomb off his belt and threw it, gun already out to shoot the flying object in mid-air, causing a minor explosion and a hell of a lot of black smoke. Even as he turned to run, he first leapt straight up to dodge the line he knew had been shot right where he’d been standing before the bomb went off.

 

_Nice try, but I know you. I know you better than anyone,_ he thought darkly as he holstered the gun and bolted through the alley into the empty street.

 

Jason knew Batman wouldn’t give up, and there was no longer any reason to avoid the rooftops, so he aimed and shot the grappling hook just in time to dodge a lunge from his former mentor.

 

“Don’t try to force an unwilling man to dance with you, B!” He yelled as the line yanked him through the air towards the nearest roof.

 

For one burning moment all he wanted to do was stay and play punch-the-Bat. Instead he was stuck playing cat and mouse with himself as the mouse.

 

No matter, he had another back-up plan nearby.

 

Several rooftops and a leap later he was flying through the air and he couldn’t help but grin under the helmet. He’d done it so many times but it was still a rush. He caught his fall with another well-aimed grappling hook, swinging himself to an abandoned multi-level car-park.

 

Snatching the detonator from a crack in the wall only took seconds, but he knew Batman was already breathing down his neck. As proven by the thud of heavy boots on concrete, the sound of the cape landing around the older man’s tall form.

 

“Hood, wait.”

 

Jason whirled around, enraged by the older man’s tone of … what was that tone even? Probably patronising. Or morally superior. Bruce was really good at both.

 

“Wait what? Wait so you can hogtie me easier and hand me off to be somebody else’s problem? Fuck you!”

 

He took enough distance and flipped the safety on the detonator. Batman would have to take a dive back out the way he came, giving Jason enough time to repeat his performance of fleeing in the midst of fire and chaos. He pressed the button.

 

And nothing happened.

 

“Wait because your explosives were cleaned out of here months ago,” Batman stated quietly, never having moved.

 

_Oh_. Well, then.

 

Jason tossed the useless detonator and tried to look like he still had a plan to fall back on. The helmet made it infinitely easier to look confident, but he was almost certain that his voice trembled with rage.

 

“You searched the entire city for my emergency plans? Come _on._ Take up knitting if you’ve too much time on your hands, B.”

 

Like a cornered animal, Jason verbally went for the throat, playful tone turning into a venomous hiss, “Or you know, start doing your job right and _kill_ the scum that can’t be cured!”

 

Jason could see Batman’s visage twist into a near-snarl. It shouldn’t have made him feel so warm inside, but it did. As Robin, he’d craved for Batman’s acceptance and lived for the moments he’d done his mentor proud. As Red Hood, things were different. He would never gain acceptance again, so he fed on anger instead.

 

“Stand down, Hood,” came the deep, gravelly voice, suggesting the impossible and they both knew it.

 

“Like fuck I will!”

 

From there, it went downhill fast. Jason traded insults for shuriken and Batman responded with batarangs, sparks showering the air when metal met in mid-air. Jason kept moving and Batman kept chasing, the shadow of the cape fluttering on the walls of the abandoned building.

 

Guerrilla tactics, take his time and strike when possible, don’t engage in a direct fight. He caught Batman with a good, heavy kick after fooling the older man into thinking he’d kept running after rounding a corner.

 

He wouldn’t be able to play the same card twice, so Jason ran like hell while the Bat was recovering. He took an empty elevator shaft down, grabbing a cable and bouncing off walls in his rapid descent. It left his heart pounding and his breath short.

 

When he slipped out through a crumbled doorway and ran into the alley, he thought he might have shaken off his persistent pursuer long enough to make it underground and out of sight.

 

Then the shadow descended in front of him and Batman’s heavy gauntlet hit him like a fucking train straight in the red helmet.

 

The world was tilting and for a moment time felt slow. Jason saw stars – literally, the night sky in his view as he fell back, shattered pieces of his helmet floating in the air like jagged shards of red ice. Then the ground was rushing to meet him and he twisted too late, the impact knocking his breath away as he hit the hard concrete shoulder-first.

 

Okay. Now he was really getting angry. And like fuck was he going to let Batman have the last hit. The shadow was looming over him, lunging, and he reacted reflexively as he twisted onto his back and kicked his heels in an upwards arc.

 

Hearing the impact of his heavy combat boot against the older man’s chiselled jaw was immensely satisfying, but he didn’t stop to gloat, continuing the momentum to vault back to his feet. His helmet was half shattered, night vision flickering on and off in the right lens that was still intact, left side bare to reveal his icy gaze to the dark night.

 

“Just had to break it, didn’t you. You think I got an endless supply of spares?”

 

A quick motion loosened the remains of the helmet and he yanked it off only to throw it at Batman. Not that it would stop the older man’s purposeful charge, but it forced the Dark Knight to bat the ruined piece of gear aside with one gauntlet, treating it like it might be rigged to blow.

 

Jason grinned. He didn’t care to use the same party trick twice, but it was amusing to see his former mentor play it safe.

 

The following series of punches and blocks they exchanged came in rapid succession, leaving Jason’s body thrumming with adrenaline. He didn’t often face people who were on the same level and still standing after he threw everything at them.

 

_Level above,_ his mind whispered. He’d grown from his Robin days, but Batman still had half a head on him, not to mention the fact that he was in another weight category entirely. Last time they went toe to toe, it didn’t end well for Jason, but he’d always known he was at a disadvantage in a direct confrontation.

 

He wasn’t below playing dirty to level the field, but this time his plan had been to avoid, not confront. How Batman had found him so quickly was beyond him. He didn’t think he ranked that high on the Bat’s priority list.

 

Jason’s thoughts were interrupted by a hard roundhouse kick aimed straight at his face. He jerked his arms up just in time to block, but the impact made him skid back several steps, sending him reeling in an attempt to regain his balance.

 

“Playing hard,” he gasped. “I like it, but I didn’t come here for another sparring match with you.”

 

Perhaps he could’ve said that sooner, though he suspected it wouldn’t have stopped Batman either way. Jason was a wanted criminal after all, former drug lord and a killer on the loose. Red Hood had racked up some international infamy as well since his last visit to Gotham.

 

Jason didn’t receive a response, and irritation burnt at the back of his mind, almost as bright as the ugly feeling of rejection he’d thought himself immune to by now. He was used to being the talkative one; Batman never rose to the bait, but here he was trying to explain himself and his former mentor still seemed bent on bruising him.

 

“You hear what I said?” The anger turned his amused voice into something harsh and the next punch he threw was out of sync, too eager to harm.

 

Batman was quick to take advantage. A grip on Jason’s arm yanked him around, turning his own momentum against him as he was whirled and slammed into the nearest brick wall so hard it shook, sending particles of dust into the air.

 

His vision blacked out for a second, and when he regained his senses, he found himself held against the wall with both arms twisted behind his back. His heart was racing and the world had turned blurry.

 

_Shit_.

 

He should have pulled a gun on Batman instead of trying to run, but he knew he didn’t want to shoot his former mentor. It didn’t pay to make threats he couldn’t deliver on.

 

“I heard. Why are you here?”

 

With the adrenaline rush winding down, he could tell that the punch that had shattered his helmet had left him with a nosebleed, and he hoped Batman hadn’t broken the damn thing.

 

Seething quietly, Jason assessed the situation and its potential outcomes.

 

If Batman wanted him arrested, he couldn’t leave him cuffed to a lamp post to wait for the police. Jason had been trained too well for that to work, he’d be long gone before the officers ever got there. No, he’d have to deliver Jason to the authorities himself, and that left plenty of opportunities for Red Hood to give his former mentor the slip.

 

He hoped it wouldn’t come down to that. Dodging Batman was a full-time job, one that required preparation and careful planning. He didn’t have time for that, so he wanted to aim for a different outcome.

 

Except the masochist in him just couldn’t help but try and have a little fun first, and he heard himself already talking before he could stop the words, “Disappointed that it isn’t always about you, B?”

 

The grip was turning painful as Batman held him pressed to the wall. “ _Why_. Are you here.”

 

Jason rolled his eyes at the tone that was so very _Batman_. He was still pissed off, the anger burning at the back of his mind like poison in an open wound. He had to keep reminding himself that he wasn’t here for a second helping of sour relations and clashing morals.

 

“Your persuasion skills are fucking flawless. Fine,” he added quickly before Batman could try to make him more intimately acquainted with the wall again. Or put him through it.

 

“There’s a new drug on the scene, unknown compound. It’s mind-altering in ways you haven’t seen before. Turns people into sex dolls, popular with the freaks who want their unwilling slaves easy to control. You don’t want to know how it leaves people after long-term use.”

 

He paused, listening, cheek against the cold bricks and body tense. Batman wasn’t close enough to touch him with anything but his hands, but he also didn’t leave much room for manoeuvring or clever counters.

 

But he seemed to have Batman’s attention, so he went on, “Long story short, I’ve been tracking the source for months, and it’s being shipped out from here. I came to clean up.”

 

The grip on one arm tightened more, twisting upwards and eliciting a noise between a growl and a yelp. “You came to kill.”

 

“We’ve been over this, you know how I feel about scumbags, Batman,” he panted through gritted teeth, a single ice blue eye staring back at the shape of the cowl. His nose was slowly dripping blood, the taste of it sliding over his lips.

 

He pushed his tongue out to lick the crimson slowly, never breaking the stare.

 

“But tell you what. Since you’re here and just _raring_ to go, how about I let you in on the action. For old time’s sakes.”

 

He couldn’t help but laugh when Batman shoved him harder against the wall, even as a part of him warned that taking the verbal jabs too far would lead to trouble he didn’t have time or inclination for.

 

“Come on, B. You can call the shots,” he whispered the last words, forcing them out past the urge to scream and rebel. He wasn’t Batman’s _boy_ anymore, he called his own shots, but he’d say anything to get the job done.

 

It felt like Batman stood there in silence forever. But then the hands were letting him go, and for a moment he was too surprised to move.

 

“No killing. Swear it, Jason.”

 

His name felt like a worm wiggling in his mind. He wondered if Batman broke the helmet on purpose, to be able to call him _Jason_ instead of Red Hood. It left him feeling exposed.

 

“It’s like you don’t trust me, B,” he quipped as he turned around to meet Batman’s scowl. He held his hands up.

 

“No killing. I swear.”

 

Didn’t mean he had to keep his word. The thing about angry dead boys turned into killing machines was that they didn’t need to adhere to rigid moral codes. He wondered if Bruce – if Batman could see the lie in his pale eyes, but after a moment of silent scowling, the caped crusader was moving away, releasing Jason from his shadow.

 

“Tell me what you know.”

 

Just like that. He was back to working with Batman.

 

Jason didn’t let out the laugh that was bubbling up at the absurd feeling of joy he felt was greatly misplaced. Neither did he let himself get lulled into a false sense of security; he wouldn’t put it past the Big Bat to try and arrest him once the job was done.

 

Still grinning sharply, he wiped his bloodied nose on his sleeve.

 

Even as he started briefing the older man on the drug cartel’s activities, his mind was at work coming up with various escape plans. As soon as this was done, he was ditching Gotham and finding a nice major city on the _other_ side of the world with plenty of drug dealers and rapists to shoot. And _no_ masked avengers with antiquated morals.

  
It most definitely did not mean he was running from his problems. He just didn’t feel like dancing with Batman, not after last time. Quick in and out, then he was _done._

**Author's Note:**

> This is looking to be a really long fic and it sort of weaves itself around many things that have happened in the comics. I'd appreciate any encouraging words if you do like it and want to see more, so leave a comment!


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